


The One That Got Away

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2019 [37]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, Drama, Essays, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Muggle/Wizard Relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 05:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: A former Hogwarts student expresses concerns.





	The One That Got Away

_Attached is my submission for the Daily Prophet’s ‘Hogwarts in Retrospect’ series._  
  
[---]  
  
Iris Walden  
Gloucester, England  
14 August 2001  
  
_For many young witches and wizards in the United Kingdom, it is a dream- indeed, an expectation- that they will attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after they’ve turned eleven years-old. For many, it’s never even a thought: Muggleborn witches and wizards are often ignorant of precisely what they are, or what their future holds for them, until the owl comes with their acceptance letter. This is a rite of passage that ninety percent of wizards and witches in the United Kingdom enjoy, and as such, Hogwarts has become a fixture of both magical education and the British magical cultural experience.  
  
For most, Hogwarts is an inevitability; and as such, rarely is the question of the cultural costs of this education posed for its young students. For if it is inevitable that most children will attend Hogwarts and have it be their primary source of education from ages eleven to eighteen, then how much true choice do they have over their futures- especially for those young wizards coming from non-magical families? Does Hogwarts prepare a child only for the magical world, or does it by its very nature restrict them to the magical world for most of their lives? Does the invasive nature of a Hogwarts education (by which I mean that children are away from home for most of the next seven years) contribute to the destruction of mixed-magical families?  
  
What choice is there, really, for the children of Hogwarts?  
  
The truth is that there is none. When one agrees to a seven-year education at this magical institution, they and their family are agreeing, without necessarily understanding the cost, to allow a child to be transplanted and raised in a new and exclusive culture. The presumption of a Hogwarts education is that the student will be a member of the magical community: Not only will they seek employment in a magical institution or setting, but they will be involved in the culture, will seek spouses and friendships and entertainment in the magical world rather than the Muggle world. Hogwarts students are not educated in Muggle current affairs, or even in Muggle history; indeed, even for students who desire to keep up with these things, the isolated nature of the school and the lack of ability to use Muggle technology (phones, computers, etcetera) make it nigh impossible to interact with the Muggle world in any meaningful capacity while at school.  
  
And so comes the creeping, devastating consequences of a choice that they, the child or the parents, didn’t even realize they were making: Their child is becoming disconnected from their world without even being aware of it. Gone is the talk of the latest bands and TV shows and books- they speak only of Hogwarts and the magical world because that’s all they know after spending most of their time at a magical school. They suddenly find that they have less and less in common with their child; a risk for any parent of a pre-teen or teenager, but far more permanent in this context.  
  
The children drift away, becoming more attached to the magical world and the wondrous promises that a magical education makes to them; left behind are their parents, non-magical siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, Muggle friends, grandparents. It is impossible to say for certain how many Muggleborn children have since totally lost contact with their families, or how many Halfblood children have distanced themselves from the Muggle half of their family, as no formal studies have been done on the topic- but on Diagon Alley, one of the busiest magical thoroughfares in England next to the Ministry of Magic, one rarely observes a Muggle spouse or child or grandparent, unless accompanying a child in their school shopping. Immediate family members and caretakers of Muggle children are exempt from the Statute of Secrecy, and yet they are rarely seen in magical spaces.  
  
In part, they doubtlessly feel overwhelmed by their environment, and are unsure how to traverse it properly or efficiently for their child’s sake. But in no small part, it is likely because they are not made to feel welcome: Muggles in magical spaces are often stared at, ignored, or spoken to condescendingly or rudely (In my own travels in Diagon Alley, I once overheard a shopkeeper speaking to a Muggle couple as though they were adorable yapping dogs rather than a grown man and woman). While Hogwarts offers some assistance to Muggleborn families in the form of a guide, this assistance lasts only as strictly needed to prepare a child for the school year. There is no guide for the greater magical world, no handbook to help them understand when their child comes home using words like ‘galleon’ or ‘arithmancy’ or, God forbid, ‘mudblood’. There is no guide for when new laws are passed that affect Muggle involvement in the magical world, or the ones that affect their children’s schooling or education. As such, the parents and other family fail to understand the vastly different world that their child is being groomed to function in.  
  
And the world that those children are being educated to work in is not, in itself, a world full of choice and promise. For what if, upon reaching adulthood, a young witch or wizard finds themselves disenchanted with the community? What if they decide that they would prefer to seek employment in the Muggle world, perhaps uninterested in the career opportunities or pay of magical occupations? Or, worst of all, what if a student is expelled from Hogwarts and now find themselves lacking the necessary educational credentials to find a job? The answer is that they are in a very bad spot.  
  
From the ages of eleven to seventeen, they have been trained and indoctrinated into a very different culture. Seven years of education in the magical world has left them lacking in the necessary education that they would have received in the Muggle world, in a Muggle school. Should a young man or woman decide that they should want to pursue electrical engineering, or non-magical animal sciences, or nursing, or perhaps even teaching basic Muggle subjects, they will almost certainly lack the basic education required for those occupations.  
  
Far too many members of the magical community fail to understand the rigorous requirements of Muggle institutions, of colleges designed to train students for careers. They will simply not accept a student whose maths, language studies, science, and social studies skills are more akin to a ten year-old’s than an adult’s. The very basic skills, the foundation upon which expertise is built in the Muggle school system, is built during those crucial school-years from ten and up. When one fails to set this foundation as a child, one finds that it is incredibly difficult- if not outright impossible- to build it from the ground-up as an adult.  
  
And this is without even suggesting the more benign side-effects of a magical education. For when a child is taught that most problems can be solved with the right spell, the right potion, the right charm, their expectations for functioning in the magical world will be quite disproportionate with reality. When repairing a vehicle, one cannot simply summon the parts from across the garage- they must organize them and be able to recognize them accordingly. When operating in the medical sciences, one cannot simply feed a patient with strange symptoms a potion and hope that it solves the problem- indeed, it could make it much worse.  
  
A magical education primes a child to operate and survive normally in the magical world, not the Muggle world. In every way, they are expected to behave as a wizard would, not as a Muggle would; and as such, they become less and less capable of operating seamlessly in the Muggle world, in such a way that they can blend in and perform tasks and jobs the Muggle way, with no magic to help. For Muggleborn children, it often has the additional effect of alienating them from their non-magical family and community, a tragedy of the highest order.  
  
As Hogwarts is the school roughly ninety percent of wizards in the United Kingdom have attended for their educational needs, the school finds itself at the center of the problem. It would be a benefit to thousands of children and families if the school and the Ministry of Magic would find better ways to incorporate Muggle families and aspects of Muggle education into the magical curriculum. There is certainly no harm in magical children learning to work with Muggle technology, nor is there any harm in them learning about the vast world outside of the magical community, of which wizards are but a very small minority in comparison. This will surely improve the lives of the children in our communities and allow them more choice in their lives and futures.  
_  
[---]  
  
_Dear Ms. Walden,_  
  
_While we at the Daily Prophet appreciate your contribution to our series on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, we simply don’t feel that your essay models the values we here at the Daily Prophet hope to pass on to our readers. The overly-critical nature of not only Hogwarts, but a magical education in general, comes across as vaguely offensive and alarmist in nature and will likely aggravate readers more than stimulate them._  
  
_Best regards,_  
  
_A. Pollibark, Chief Editor_  
  
[---]  
  
“Oh, what an _utter_ shock,” Iris huffed. “The magical newspaper doesn’t want to print a story about how their educational system and society is flawed. I feel positively faint with surprise.”  
  
“The hell with them,” Lila remarked, dumping more sugar into her coffee. “You got out, didn’t you? And we’re all the happier for it. Best you can do now is advise the Muggle parents you find of their options.” She glanced over the copy of the essay again, which had been returned with the rejection letter. “Lord, sissy, you skirted in just under that fifteen-hundred word-limit, didn’t you? Also, consider revisiting your writing-skills, dear. You make your point well, but you could use some help with the finer points of structuring a professional essay.”  
  
“I’ll blame that on the lack of proper writing classes at Hogwarts, thank you.”  
  
“You certainly could.”  
  
-End

**Author's Note:**

> IDK man, I don't know if it's different in the UK from the US, but college competition is ROUGH here.
> 
> If some wizarding kid went to Hogwarts for seven years and then decided they wanted to be a doctor or something, a college is gonna see that you have no educational history (no high school, middle school, etc) and they're just gonna say "Pass" without another glance. And I mean, given the lack the necessary basic education for college (math, science, etc) I can't see a kid doing too well on a GED exam (or whatever the UK equivalent is) unless they cram a basic education in before it. Unless mom and dad have been cramming a Muggle education in during their summer vacations, these kids probably aren't very advanced beyond age eleven education-wise.
> 
> tl;dr magical kids are kinda screwed if they ever want to, idk, NOT have a magical job as an adult.


End file.
